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This is one of my experiences of sexual abuse. Honestly, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been abused — the number is blurry now. He was my boss, a married man with three kids, probably 35 to 38 years old. After work, he would take me to his garden. He poured alcohol down my throat — way too much. Even when I told him “You’re pouring too much, I can’t drink this,” he kept pressuring me to finish the glass. At first I agreed to drink with him, but I clearly told him multiple times that I wasn’t ready for sex. I even said I would do oral but not full sex. I got so drunk that I don’t remember exactly when it started. Suddenly he was having sex with me. I was screaming the whole time. He even told me to scream louder — my throat hurt the next day. He didn’t use a condom or any lube. Every time it was painful. Afterwards and the next day I would bleed when I went to the bathroom, even though I wasn’t on my period. I went to a gynecologist alone. The pelvic exam was extremely painful. She told me I had a bad infection, cleaned me up, and I had to take antibiotics. I also got tested for STDs — thankfully everything came back negative. There were other times too. Once I told him I was on my period and that I was drunk and wanted to sleep, but he still took my clothes off and rubbed himself on me until he finished. Every single time, as soon as he ejaculated he would get dressed and leave without saying a word. For a long time I blamed myself completely. I thought “I got in his car myself, I drank, so it’s my fault.” Right after it happened I was destroyed — extremely anxious, crying for months, and even now, almost a year later, I still cry about it and feel deep shame and guilt. I keep asking myself why I let this happen. But I know now that none of it was my fault. I said no. I was too drunk to truly consent. He took advantage of me and ignored my boundaries and my pain. I’m still healing. Sharing this is part of that process.

My sexual assaults story is uncommon for most and hard to most people to grasp. Who would believe that children are capable of knowing and doing such gruesome things to person? Most children are not like this and their experiences are different. It first happened when I was 8 years old while, my abuser was 7 years old at the time. I remember the abuse happening gradually as we build our friendship. It first started with us doing typical kid stuff like us playing together and joking around. And one day, he asked me to play this new game with him. I said sure. I thought it would be one of those silly jokes stunts of his. Instead he pulled my pants down and rubbed his private part against my bottom. It was really uncomfortable moment for me since, I grew-up in a strict Christian-based family. I have never witness anyone on television or heard of the things he was doing to me. Afterwards, I remember me being shy to tell anyone and feeling like I would get into trouble. So I remained quiet. How would any parent react if you see children engaging in sexual behavior? Wouldn't you automatically assume it was the oldest child to teach someone this behavior? This went on for almost 2 years. His behavior became more advance and his request got more weirder. One time, he begged me to drink his pee directly from his part. I told him no. And he stomped across the room mad. He kept persisting and demanding that I try it. Eventually, I gave in but, I told him only from a cup. It was the most dehumanizing experiences of my life. It was not long afterwards, that my father caught us. I remember me trying shove the boy off of me. And telling him that my dad was coming and he kept going harder and harder. I guess he thought I was lying to convince him to get off of me. He wouldn't stop until my father walked into the room.

I never associated my assaults as sexual assaults. I always just saw it as a thing that happened me that was upsetting until recently. I was groped, forced into having sex and preforming oral sex on him. I remember one time he offered to drive me home. I lived over 40 mins from town so I thought i could save myself €60 in a taxi. Until I realised we were going in the opposite direction to my house. He drove me to secluded area. I knew it wasn't right I said no said I was due my period I tried everything I could to deter him. It didn't work. I can't drive that road without a feeling of dread. I do feel part to blame and I know that's wrong. I hate how it makes me feel. When I hear stories in the news I can't help but think my story isn't as bad as theirs or that maybe mine wasn't rape or a sexual assault. I hate myself for thinking it.

Remember that every life form happens without chosing where to be. The problem is not inside you, but around you. Life is the time you have in order to understand what is around you. Don't rest comfortably in places where you feel unsuitable to your best self. If you have no choice, this is not about you. This is about things you couldn't decide before being born. I wish you better luck and exposure to good things you find suitable to your best self.

After the election, the very end will have the political ask - feel free to cut that if you want to share. Thanks so much for reading my story. Link

• Brief biography (upbringing, etc.): While living at home, I suffered physical and mental abuse from my father, neglect from my mother (a continuation of the abuse from my maternal grandparents), violence from my older sister, and had to care for my younger sisters. On the other hand, from a young age, I enjoyed reading academic books, and I had a strong desire to receive higher education and contribute to society by making the most of the educational environment available to me, so I spent all my free time studying... However, at the age of 17, I reached my limit, and my physical and mental health deteriorated, resulting in eight chronic illnesses (taking 10 different medications), and I spent two years resting. (I also dropped out of high school ) Afterwards, because my funds were limited (I earned them myself), I took the entrance exam for a university that I could take while living in Prefecture Name , and I enrolled in University . Along with enrolling in university, Leaving my hometown , and while receiving treatment for my chronic illnesses, I energetically engaged in volunteer work and activities with NPO organizations (NPO organizations for people with Down syndrome).

Starting off, I want to share that healing is not the same for everybody. We all take different paths, bumps or curves in the road, or heal directly, without interference. Me personally, it took about 2-4 years until I realized I had been sexually assaulted. When I first learned the meaning, I presumed it "didn't count", and that it wasn't what I thought due to the manner of which the act was committed. I spoke with a close friend online, and he helped me to understand that it in fact was, sexual assault. I was about 13-14 at this time, I'd never been taught the importance or gruesome facts of sexual assault. I resented many people, accordingly my parents for not informing me, or preparing me. I blamed many others including myself. Although, it never felt as if the weight was taken off of my chest, off of my head, or my body. At 15, I sought help via the suicide hotline. I felt like there was nothing left for me, and the shame I felt, my lack of a voice to speak out. I was provided appropriate resources, indulged myself in meditation, which did have a positive effect, yet wasn't enough. Nobody in my life knew of what happened, except for a mystery woman on the other end of the hotline. I remembered then the ease I felt speaking to that one woman whom I hadn't even known, and realized the ease I could feel if I told people I DID know. I began to speak to friends, and anyone I trusted although never my parents, and still have not. Now, I'm older although there are struggles still with my nightmares, some guilt, I have found peace. I've found strength, courage, a feather now on my chest replacing the 40 pound anchor sunk into it, my heart and mind has healed. I've found love for others and myself. In the time I've spent healing from self harm, suicidal tendencies, self isolation, and guilt, I've learned one important factor, and that is I am not, alone. Nobody is alone in their struggles and there is something out there or somebody at all times to positively rebuild us and guide us to peace. I hope for anybody and everybody struggling to find peace, finds that peace, and can one day replace the anchor with the same feather.

I'm 71 years old and allowed myself to be abuised for over 20years out of a 36 year marriage. I lost my daughters and grandchildren because of my actions. I've got no one I'm totally alone. I found out that my husband was a drug addict to prescriptions and was a thief and a liar who manipulated everyone around him he was a good guy. I was to busy working raising a family and continued to let this man use me because I loved him. I just realized love shouldn't hurt. He's left our home for years at a time, I've never gone with any one else. I've been raped strangled beaten bruised bloodied ,used money and antiques stolen etc. . I allowed myself to be used over and over why I don't know still don't I thought I loved him because we had a special bond . I was kidding myself and it hurts more than you know. I tried to end my life to get rid of the pain of abuise and failed years ago. Couldn't live with the pain of losing my family. . I'm so alone sitting in a house wasting away waiting to die someday someone will notice by my mail or my dog. What a shame I was a beautiful strong loving wife and mother grandmother to be left this way to die alone and broken because I was abuised I blame , my children for not protecting me,, the courts most of all I blame myself for loving a man and not loving myself more. I need help and I still do.

High Priest, You are not my superior Nor would I say equal The darkness overtook you? Abdication of responsibility - not good enough "Call to my house" You opened the door to naivety and trust Vulnerability at the worst You - only lust. In this now New Earth With the light streaming in I see your cowardice, your sin You took the phone off the hook Now, two decades later, to be disturbed The light won't let the dirt hide any longer Now I am stronger. I forgive you to set myself free You have played your part I am at peace, in my power and to reiterate, free.

I'm still angry. My boyfriend of 4 years raped me in January. We had talked about kids. Marriage. Our future together. I trusted him with my life. He knew that, and I often wonder if he used that. He gave me an edible and encouraged me to drink. I figured he would want nothing but the best for me, so I obliged. Like I said, I trusted him with my life. I blacked out. I remember about 5 minutes of the entire 4 hour ordeal. I remember saying I was dizzy and wanted to sleep, and he told me that the only way to not get sick from drinking (which was a big fear of mine) was to have sex. I was so intoxicated I couldn't hold myself up. I fell flat on my face a few times. It was 4 hours. 4 hours long of him taking advantage of me being unconscious. Due to some health issues, I couldn't have sex with him when conscious, so I guess he invited himself to it when I wasn't conscious. I'm still upset. But that's the thing: I am upset about the situation, but I don't hate him. Too many people keep asking why I continue to keep up with him after what he did. It isn't that black and white. I support people forgiving their abusers. I support people not forgiving their abusers. Right now, he's still in my life because he lives nearby and he's going through a lot and I try to help where I can. But I also am fully aware of my own limitations and what I can handle. I am helping him from an emotional distance. I hate what he did, but I don't hate him. I haven't cut him off yet, and I don't have to. Stop trying to fill in the ending to my story, and let me write it myself.

I felt so alone until I watched it ends with us. It was the first movie I saw alone in a long time. I walked in thinking it was some sort of romantic comedy until I was watching the movie and realized I was lily bloom. I married the man that I thought was this incredible and passionate person, who only ended up cheating on me and physically and mentally abused me. The scene of being pushed and her thinking she fell is exactly what I experienced. Shortly after my own personal experience I realized I was pregnant and wanted so badly to fight for my marriage until ultimately I had no choice but to leave. I’m 8 months pregnant now and have had the hardest time connecting to the life inside of me until I watched this movie. When I saw lily setting up her baby’s room, and the words she said to Ryle in the hospital was exactly what I needed to accept what it is I am going through and realizing I will never go back to the abuse I endured. And truly it ends with me and my new baby that I have yet to meet. Thanks to this movie it gave me strength to set up things for my new baby. I gave him a new name. And I am ready for a new chapter in my life. Thank you to Justin baldoni for bringing awareness to people like me. I left the theatre crying not because I was sad but because God brought me alone to that theatre to watch this movie that I felt was made just for me…

I was waiting at a city bus stop. I saw a man across the street, he was very dirty and obviously not in his right mind. I tried to avoid eye contact but he already saw me. He crossed the street and started shouting at me. Asking for my name and where I lived. I tried to hide in a convenience store until he left. My phone was on 5 percent so I couldn’t call anyone to help me. At one point I thought he had left so I walked back out. He was actually hiding behind a sign and came back out once he saw I had come back. I ran back inside the store. Eventually the bus came and I left. Normally I’m not scared of this sort of thing. But because of the state of mind this man was in I didn’t know what he would do if I confronted him. When I ran to the bus he started screaming obscenities at me.

i want justin baldoni to know how proud dv people are of him. i can tell how much he cares and this movie he made has impacted him. my father is a very verbal and physical abuser and my mom left after 20 years and im forever grateful and im so glad they made this movie. thank you justin.

It’s been almost 10 years and the scars still feel so fresh and I honestly don’t know how to stop feeling so much pain and anger. How can someone who claims to love you, hurt you because your boundaries did not benefit them. “I am trying to help you“ lol. Help me? By violating my boundaries because you didn’t want to wait for me to be ready? Because you knew this was something I’d never done and I wanted to take my time to make sure I was comfortable but that would mean that you would have had to respect what I wanted and that didn’t sit right with you, so you decided to force something that I didn’t even know if I was ready for. Thanks to you I have an emotional scars and trauma that feel like I will never be free. Thanks to you, I feel so much anger, thanks to you I have to spend the rest of my life trying to heal because you couldn’t wait for me to be ready.

Each year it crashes in like the waves beating the stand. It brings a swirl of emotion and feelings unbeknownst to my fragile mind. My body seises as it struggles to stay afloat. I gasp as the sharp prickly water traps my body, unable to move, but only to breathe, breathe... breathe... and breathe. A calm air slowly comes over me as I become conscious of this storm. Sobering me, I remember that it will pass...

The Smoke and the Shield I grew up in a house where the air was always thick with the sweet, chemical stench of the meth pipe. My mother, stepfather, aunts, and uncles weren't just parents; they were soldiers in a war that didn't exist, and paranoia was our oxygen. I learned early that survival meant playing along with their ghosts, agreeing that I heard helicopters that weren't there just to avoid the jagged rants that followed if I didn't. I spent my childhood secretly praying for the police to raid us, not because I understood crime, but because I was desperate for someone to save me. But the sirens never came. Instead, I lived in the crossfire of meth-induced rage. I was accused of imaginary crimes born in their frantic minds, belittled until I felt invisible, and beaten until the fat lips became my only excuse to miss school. Neglect was my first language; I walked into classrooms smelling of that house while other children whispered about cooties and pulled away. My mother was so consumed by the pipe that she never taught me how to say no, leaving me defenseless when the betrayal turned predatory. At twelve, she served me meth in my coffee, trapping me in a nightmare of hallucinations. By thirteen, my protectors became my traffickers, selling my body under the guise of babysitting to a man twice my age. They groomed me to believe violation was normal, using pornography to distort my world before I even knew what a healthy life looked like. Eventually, something inside me snapped. I tried to drown the pain in alcohol and self-mutilation, attempting to leave this world numerous times because a life defined by their cruelty didn't feel like living. Even when hospitalized, the rule of silence followed me; I was too terrified to betray the family that had already discarded me. When child services finally intervened, my parents cheated the drug tests to keep the pipe lit, and rather than choosing me over the drug, my mother abandoned me to the system. I was angry, alone, and exhausted, but in the hollow quiet of foster care, I realized the only hand coming to save me was my own. I clawed my way out, fighting for my GED and stepping into a career that demanded the discipline and strength I had been forced to develop as a child. I made a silent vow to never become the monsters who raised me, but the trauma of my youth had broken my internal radar. I backslid into an abusive marriage that forced me to relive the nightmare I thought I had escaped. My husband tried to kill me twice, and when that didn’t work, he shifted to breaking me down mentally. He told me to kill myself because he didn’t want to do the dirty work of killing me himself. I became so broken that I almost succeeded, but after a medical crisis that should have been the end, I was told I was lucky to be alive. That was the moment the world shifted. I realized my life had value, and I took my kids and left him for good. Today, my life is dedicated to being the sanctuary I never had. I am raising my children in a home defined by stability and real love, not the chemical shadows or the violence of my past. I am sober, I am awake, and I am present for every moment they need me. I am constantly exhausted from the weight of the past and the effort of standing guard, but it is a fight worth fighting. The cycle is broken, and for the first time, my children are growing up in a house that is truly, deeply safe.

Is it considered sexual abuse if I consented? I got sexted when I was 12 but I consented and wasn't forced. He was 17.

My story starts when I was around 5 or 6 and I began to be sexually abused by my brother who is 3 years older than me. This continued until I was around 11 or 12 when he finally "lost interest" in me. Still to this day, I wonder what made him stop, but nonetheless, I am grateful he did. I kept this a secret until this past year when I was 13 and my parents found out through a friend. My parents didn't seem affected and told me he "didn't know better" and was "just a boy being a boy". This enraged me and continues to, but I feel that there is nothing I can do. My experience with COSCA never felt worthy and everyone I told seemed to turn it down and belittled it. As I work through the trauma that was caused, my brother remains in the room next to me and without any punishment whatsoever. I hope to one day speak out against him,, but for now I just want to raise awareness around the subject because nobody should feel their story isn't important.

It happened during my second year of graduate school. I traveled from Boston to Connecticut to attend a friend's birthday party. I had other friends that I knew who were going to be there, so I decided why not. The party took place in a private room in the back of a lounge/restaurant. Most of the people who attended where either in the same sorority as me, were a friend, fraternity brother, or fellow military officers of the birthday boy. We all were either dancing, drinking, and grooving to the music that was being played by the DJ in his corner. I remember the birthday boy asking me to take a series of drinking shots with him and a few friends---all custom made by the bartender. "Give us your best shot! [laughter] Surprise us," is what I remember him stating to the bartender over the loud music. The two shots we took at jägermeister mixed with a few other liqueurs. Black out. I woke up naked in a hotel room laying on top of and kissing another female friend surrounded by at least four other men in the room. They were encouraging us to continue to make out and grind on one another, including the birthday boy. In the moment, it looked and felt like that scene in a movie where a group of drunk college boys are at a party and egging each other on to do something stupid--but in slow motion. The slow motion became faster and reality sank in. I remember becoming fully aware of what was happening and jumping back and off of her. I remember her passing out. Black out. I woke up again. This time on the floor in front of the hotel bed. He was having sex with me as I woke up from my unconsciousness. I remember looking up to his face and looking to the left of his face realizing that the hotel tv was playing in the background. I remember telling him "no" and "stop" and pushing him off of me. I ran to the bathroom. I was still naked. As I entered the bathroom and shut the door, the first thought that came to my head as I looked into the mirror was, "How the hell did you get yourself into this situation? Is this really you? Are you really here right now?" I started to cry and then quickly reminded myself of where I was at. I then said to myself, "Wash your face. Find your clothes. Find your phone. But don't make a scene." So I washed the darkened mascara off myself. Walked out of the bathroom to find my clothes and phone. I realized that everyone except him seemed to be sleeping and there was another person who was sitting on top of the bed watching tv. The same tv that I saw to the left of him. The same bed that I woke up in front of, on the floor. "Was he just watching this entire time and didn't do anything?" That's what I asked myself. I found my clothes and phone. Phone was dead. After some time passed, everyone started to wake up and I just sat in the chair and waited for everyone to get dressed. We left the hotel room and went to a local IHOP for breakfast. I wasn't sure how to process what happened just hours before. I wasn't sure if I felt safe enough to ask them what happened. I felt disgusted with myself. I also wasn't sure if what I experienced was real. I was hungover. They all were in the military, including the female I woke up in my consciousness to the first time. They drove me all the back back to Boston and dropped me off at home. There was no mention about what happened. Goodbye. I entered my apartment, went upstairs, got in the shower and cried. After the shower, I crawled in my bed. Black out.